''Christ in Glory'',
commissioned by
Emperor Iyasu I Yohannes of Ethiopia

THE
MIRACLE WE CALL
"BIBLE"

- Our faith is not European.
- Our list of Bible books was not decided by politics or
councils, but
through miraculous unity and charity among believers.

The gospel news of Jesus' kingdom
(Mt24:14)
originated in Asia in the area of modern Israel. Just three
of Jesus'
primary eleven apostles crossed into Europe (Peter, Andrew
and James
the son of Zebedee). Five traveled into Africa (Matthew,
Bartholomew, Jude Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot, and James the
son of
Alphaeus), several going as far as Morocco and Ethiopia.
While all eleven
of them first labored in Asia, four (Bartholomew, Thomas
Didymus, Jude
Thaddeus, and
Simon the Zealot) went further East into Armenia, Georgia,
Persia and
India. The Apostles Philip and John remained in Asia Minor,
traveling
only as far as the West coast of modern Turkey. In addition
to these
eleven, Jesus personally commissioned Paul plus the seventy
Apostles of
Luke 10:1 including Mark, Barnabas, Matthias, and another
Thaddeus.

AUTHORITY OF THE APOSTLES
As the Apostles won their crowns of
martyrdom, the men whom
they appointed as bishops over each city carried on the
torch.
Contrary to modern re-imaginings of the early church,
ancient documents
show the widespread (but not universal) practice from the
time of the
Apostles of appointing one bishop over the congregation of
each city with elders,
deacons, and deaconesses serving under the bishop. Bear in
mind that the "cities" were far smaller than most modern
cities. No bishop in the
early centuries held the same authority as an Apostle, but
the
unanimous decisions of all bishops were held in similar
esteem as that of the
Apostles. Miraculously, the Apostolic line of bishops
maintained unity for four hundred years. Often they
disagreed, but
never did they break fellowship until 431AD.
Eusebius of Caesarea tells us that Peter,
James, and John
"strove not after honor, but chose James the Just bishop of
Jerusalem."
Most early writers acknowledged James the Just as the half
brother of
Jesus and author of the Epistle of James. Over time, Rome,
Byzantium
(later called Constantinople), Antioch, Alexandria and
Jerusalem became the earliest "patriarchates" where an archbishop
held
authority over other cities in their region to appoint
bishops and
settle disputes.
Just as Jesus prophesied, many false
teachers
quickly rose up, including Simon the Magician (as mentioned
in Acts 8),
Valentinus, and later Mani of Seleucia. Gnosticism (as
exemplified by
Valentinus) persisted as a challenge for the new Christian
faith for several
hundred years. By condemning the material world and our
material bodies
as evil, Gnostics offered escape from evil through a secret
knowledge
by which the human mind becomes spiritual or even divine.
Just as John
the Apostle warned, Gnostics rejected the testimony of the
Apostles
that the Word of God had come in the flesh in Jesus of
Nazareth as the
Messiah-King of earth.

AUTHORITY OF THE BISHOPS
As the saints exposed Gnosticism, they
relied on the unity of the Apostolic line bishops as a
primary proof of what was true and false. Not once in the
first 300
years did a bishop of the Apostolic lines teach a heretical
theology,
much less offer one of the Gnostic writings as scripture.
When many in
the Nestorian "Church of the East" later exhibited gnostic
leanings,
even the Church of the East never recognized Gnostic
writings as holy
writ, despite the fact that they operated independently
without any
pressure or authority from the Roman, Eastern Orthodox, or
Oriental Orthodox hierarchies. Bishops of the Apostolic line
on three continents
unanimously rejected Gnosticism and Gnostic writings.

UNEARTHLY UNITY
Jesus taught the Apostles, "The kings of
the
Gentiles lord it over them, and those who have authority
over them are
called 'benefactors,' but not so with you. Instead, let the
greatest
among you become as the least, and one who governs become
the slave of
all." Just as Peter, James and John shied away from glory by
appointing
James the Just as bishop of the first congregation, so too
the earliest
bishops sought not to control one another, but to work
together and
to build up each other. We may find the most striking
example of
cooperation and mutual deferral in their declarations of
what they
considered divinely inspired, Christian Scriptures.
Modern myths claim that religious
politicians wrangled
and voted books in and out of scripture at the Council of
Nicaea or
elsewhere. The consistent witness however of early Christian
writers
shows otherwise. The basis for accusing Nicaea of deciding
the canon
comes from a single comment by the Latin scholar Jerome
around AD 400. Jerome stated that one book was not listed
among the holy writings of Nicaea. Despite the appearance of
his
comment, the records of Nicaea reflect no discussion of the
canon.
Presumably Jerome simply intended to note that no one at the
Council of Nicaea quoted
from the that particular book as authoritative.
Rather than argue about what was
scripture, early
Christian writers charitably listed what they understood to
be holy
scripture. They listed books which everyone considered holy and books which
Christians disagreed. Yet
such disagreements were not the cantankerous, condemning
arguments of
our modern age. As foreign as it seems to modern believers,
early
disagreements were simple admissions of differing opinions.
Since
the Apostolic line of bishops did not universally agree
regarding the
list of holy books, no bishop from the Apostolic line or
even a synod
of bishops ever tried to force their list of scripture on
the universal
church in those early centuries. The Synod of Carthage in
397 gave an
excellent example as they drew up a list which they agreed
for their
region as holy scripture, yet they stated that the
congregation "across the sea"
should be consulted about their canon.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE
To see how miraculous our Christian New
Testament is, we must understand the tragic divisions which
occurred in
Christianity before the current canon of scripture
miraculously came to
be agreed upon without ever being agreed upon. In the year
325AD, the
Roman Emperor Constantine
famously called for the council of Nicaea to resolve the
"Arian"
controversy. For the first time, a bishop from the Apostolic
line
(Eusebius of Nicodemia) supported a doctrine which all other
Apostolic
bishops considered heretical. Eusebius of Nicodemia
supported the doctrine
of a priest named Arius who claimed that Jesus was not just
begotten of God,
but
created by God from nothing. His claim painted the
Son of God as less divine than God the Father.
At Nicaea, Eusebius of Nicodemia
pretended to recant that claim and to agree with the
council. All appeared well, but all was
not well. He soon reverted to Arianism which became as much
a problem
for Christians as Gnosticism had been before it. Emperor
Constantine
also gave birth at Nicaea to the idea that doctrinal
disagreements
should be mended by political clout rather than
relationships.
Archbishop Cyril of Alexandria next took
up the
sword of politics in
431AD against Bishop Nestorius of Constantinople, winning
the political
battle but losing the Church of the East at the Council of
Ephesus. Cyril's victory proved short-lived however. His
successor,
Dioscorus
argued and used politics against Archbishop Flavian of
Constantinople so
that the second council of Ephesus literally came to blows.
In the
subsequent Council of Chalcedon in 451AD, dyophysite and
miaphysite
believers were deeply and tragically divided from each
other. What
Cyril did to Nestorius, Flavian likewise did to Dioscorus,
dividing
Christianity through politics and excommunicating large
swaths of
Christians from one another.
Diaphysites are accused along with
Nestorius of believing
that the person of the
Logos (the Son of God) took flesh by joining Himself to
Jesus of
Nazareth at conception, so that the divine Word became flesh
without
becoming human. Historians today disagree as to whether
Nestorius
actually taught diaphysitism. Diaphysitism believes just as
the two
natures of Jesus (human and
divine) were distinct from one another in the one flesh, and
so
likewise the two persons (the Word & Jesus) remained
distinct in
the one flesh. Miaphysitism disagrees, saying the two
natures were
joined not only in flesh, but also in person and in nature.
Dyophysitism differs from both by believing the two natures
remained
distinct in the
singular person of the Logos (also called Jesus) in human
form:

To recap, Nestorius was excommunicated in
431. His
followers were accused of diaphysitism and most commonly
called the
"Assyrian Church of the East." Miaphysitism was
anathematized in
451 and is today most commonly known as the
"Oriental Orthodox Church." Dyophysites in the Byzantine
empire
remained (relatively) unified until the
eleventh century when they split into Roman Catholic and
Eastern
Orthodox, also commonly called Greek Orthodox.

UNITY IN DISAGREEMENT
Despite the divisions of dia, mia and
dyo, we had no
similar battle regarding the canon of scripture. Almost as
quickly as
the faith spread into Persia, India, Egypt, Ethiopia,
Greece, and
Italy, so too evangelists translated the holy writings from
Greek and
Hebrew into Aramaic, Coptic, Ethiopic, Greek, and Italian.
The
historian Eusebius of Caesarea (not of Nicodemia) said
Matthew wrote
his gospel in Hebrew as he ministered first in Jerusalem for
several
years before going on missionary journeys. Eusebius of
Caesarea also
said Paul wrote the letter to the Hebrews in Hebrew which
Luke or
Clement of Rome later translated into Greek.
The many early translations of scripture held great
agreement in the content of words so that even modern
skeptics agree
that the various scripture translations handed down from
800AD to 1800AD
across the world came from a single line of manuscripts,
with the
exception of the Coptic translation in Egypt! This
remarkable feat may
be rightly called a miracle, especially considering how
divided
Christianity became in the fifth century. Our various
translations
agreed not only in manuscript-origin, but also in the list
or "canon"
of writings which each region deemed to be scripture.
Despite our
tragic breaks in fellowship, believers across all three
continents came
to regard the modern canon in great harmony. We can see how
miraculous
is our Bible through a brief survey of the seven earliest
translations
of scripture which continued to be used for well over a
thousand years
from the time of their creation until the present without
any break
in use: